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hiking

The
lyrics say: On top of Old Smokey / All
covered with snow / I lost my true lover / from courting too slow…

I’ve never stood on top of a mountain called Old Smokey, but I have hiked to the top of Whiteside Mountain in North Carolina many times. My husband and I hiked it in all seasons. Sometimes there was ice and snow on the trail; other times, the blooms of spring and summer. One thing that did not change though – the magnificent view of the valleys and hills below. Just a while before, we had been standing in a parking area surrounded by trees, an information board and porta-potties. Now we were watching the hawks soar below our vantage point.

I think about hiking to the top of a mountain every time I read Psalm 61:2 –

“I call to You when my heart is overwhelmed and weak; Lead me to the
rock that is higher than I [a rock that is too high to reach without Your help].” (AMP version)

Here’s the great thing about climbing higher… your vision is no longer limited.

Where
before you were just looking at trees, and could only see a few feet ahead,
now, with the new perspective of height, you can see for miles and miles.

YES! Lead me to the rock that is higher than where
I am currently located!

I
don’t want the limited vision of my perspective. I want to see what the Lord wants me to see;
the new perspective of the unlimited vision of faith. I want to see what can happen when God is in
the equation. I want to see the bigger
picture painted by trust and obedience rather than the 4×6 snapshot of fear and
doubt. And I want to believe that God’s
view includes “immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine!” (Eph. 3:20)

Yeah,
you may lose a “true lover” on the top of Old Smokey, but the only thing lost
by following God to the top the higher Rock is the limited views of the
valley.